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kmeisthaxlast Wednesday at 11:50 PM1 replyview on HN

All those patents are standards-essential, which means Qualcomm (and anyone else involved in the standardization process for cellular networks) has to license them under "FRAND[0]" terms, which at least for this scenario means "for the same price we'd license them to Samsung or Intel[1]". It also means that design-arounds are not possible; if you design a different technology from the one Qualcomm owns, you're not speaking 5G anymore. That's why we have these legal rules on standards-essential patents.

[0] Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory. Each one of those words has a funny legal definition separate from whatever English you're thinking of.

[1] Who, incidentally, sold Apple the modem division that made the C1, because Intel is nothing but a bottomless pit of bad management decisions


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throwaway4731last Thursday at 1:18 AM

I’ll admit with not being up to speed here, my information is actually fairly old, but Qualcomm is famous for skirting its FRAND obligations and as far as I know “no license, no chips” is still de rigor. https://www.sunsteinlaw.com/publications/no-license-no-chips...